Not to do anything too original here to start, but this post is in the same vein as "The Biggest Star". Basically, if anyone has investigated some of the truly massive galaxies in Space Engine. Or indeed any of the other galaxies, for that matter. The Milky Way by itself has enough stars to last a life time, but it's still too close to home for my tastes. Which isn't surprising, as it is home.

I suppose I'll start with one of the larger ones out there, IC 1101. In fact Wikipedia says that it *is* the largest galaxy that the stargazing set are currently aware of. But it's A) Wikipedia, and B ) subject to change in any case. But that does not mean that it is not legitimately huge.

As you can see from the picture, we're nearly 75 thousand parsecs out and it still takes up most of the frame. It's +100Mpc from Earth so you'll definitely want to bring your largest interstitial drive for the trip.

Out on the edge of galactic plane, it's a typical story. Red and orange giants, sometimes stacked on top of each other in binary+ systems. Decent prospects for life baring planets but not necessarily Earth-like worlds either. At 0.3g's and 100 atmospheres and in orbit around a large gas giant, you can breath the air a couple of miles up, but your kids will be midget pole vaulters that glow in the dark. In other words, a carnie's dreams come true.

Incidentally, I cranked the magnitude threshold to up +10. In comparison to the Milky, Whirlpool and Andromeda Galaxies (or even the LMC and SMC), the edge is a bit less densely packed.

Even towards the galactic core it's not exactly populated, and no sign of blue stars. You can see them from thousands of parsecs away usually in standard spiral galaxies. But then again, this is no ordinary galaxy, either.

It's a bit more exciting close to the core though, and at +10 Magnitude it even looks dense. But here I've turned the magnitude back down to +7, and it looks fairly empty again. In comparison, you can't even get halfway through the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy on default settings before your FPS tanks due to all the stars.

But I'll tell you one thing, this place is PACKED with globular clusters. You just keep tripping over them as you fly through. Definitely a place to visit if you are a black hole spotter. Speaking of black holes, the galactic core has a diameter of just under 4AU. That's 13 times the size of the Milky Way's galactic black hole (IIRC), and you can make it out in detail thousands of parsecs away with ease. Not an object to go anywhere near if you can help it in real life, but then again it's a simulator so...

Another night, another big galactic-sized system. I though I would take the cheap way out and do the Andromeda Galaxy, but fortunately I have a rather better set tonight. Two big galaxies for the price of one. Let's look at...IC 1166. One and two.

These are also S0-style systems, and both are substantially bigger than the Milky Way but individually smaller than IC 1101. IC 1166-1 (left) is 25% larger than our galaxy. The other, IC 1166-2, is just under twice the size. Together they make IC 1101 look like a piker, and it certainly looks like they will be together quite soon. In fact if you fly in between the rim of #1 and the dome of #2, you get stars from both galaxies mingling with each other. Utterly nuts!

LordHaHa

Added (09.09.2011, 12:01)---------------------------------------------I took a little time to look for some larger spirals of other types after all the S0's; large irregulars tend not to be photogenic.

So here is NGC 4727, just a bit over 100 Mpc away from Earth. It's the same type of galaxy that the Milky Way is (SBc), but it's twice as large as ours. A few years back a Type II supernova popped off around here at Magnitude 18, by far one of the more notable things about the place outside of its size.

Lots of bright blue systems along the disk. One of them even has a nice desert planet that isn't too hot, despite the system. I really wish I could find a Terra is an O0 system, or even O1/O2. Hell, I'd like to *find* an O0 or O1, the hottest ones I can find are O2 no matter where I look. If anyone has one they've tucked away, feel free to share.

And another thing (not to consciously reference the terrible sixth HG2G book that Irish fellow wrote recently): why aren't there many, if any, procedural O2 systems that are not binary? It seems like everywhere outside of the Orion Arm is at least a binary system, especially in other galaxies.